Do most NYC Blacks have Caribbean roots?

[King of Kensington]

My guess is that around 50% or so do.  1/3 of NYC blacks are foreign born, mostly from the Caribbean and there's a sizable second generation since that wave began about half a century ago.   In addition a lot of the "old" Black community in NYC is of Caribbean descent (think Harry Belafonte, Colin Powell, Eric Holder etc.) even though they're thought of just "African American" today.

[Tintrlvr]

50% seems high for the city as a whole. 50% of blacks in Brooklyn would sound right, but most blacks in Manhattan* and Queens** have long-time American background (using African American as the term for these people). Even in Brooklyn, it varies by neighborhood. Bed-Stuy and northern Crown Heights are more African American while East Flatbush is more Afro-Caribbean. The Bronx is probably somewhat close to 50% also due to black Dominicans, though they don't always identify as black, and outside of the black Dominican community most blacks are African Americans.

*There's also a fairly substantial African immigrant community (mostly from former French West Africa, with parts of Harlem along 116th St called Le Petite Senegal) in Upper Manhattan, but I wouldn't consider their numbers large enough to make a big difference city-wide.

**This is changing somewhat. Rosedale, Laurelton, etc. have a significant amount of Jamaicans in particular. Also, black Guyanese (like most Guyanese) tend not to identify as "black" on the Census, preferring "Other", and they're a significant factor in some Queens neighborhoods (Richmond Hill, Ozone Park) - and of course Guyana is not a Caribbean island so they are not Caribbean per se though definitely foreign-born.

Edit: Wikipedia says (though unfortunately without citation) that NYC has about 700,000 blacks of non-African American ancestry (Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latino or African background plus I'm sure a tiny number of Afro-Europeans, etc.), including descendants of immigrants, out of a total black population of about 2,000,000. Which sounds like the right proportions to me.

[Suburbia]

50% seems high for the city as a whole. 50% of blacks in Brooklyn would sound right, but most blacks in Manhattan* and Queens** have long-time American background (using African American as the term for these people). Even in Brooklyn, it varies by neighborhood. Bed-Stuy and northern Crown Heights are more African American while East Flatbush is more Afro-Caribbean. The Bronx is probably somewhat close to 50% also due to black Dominicans, though they don't always identify as black, and outside of the black Dominican community most blacks are African Americans.

*There's also a fairly substantial African immigrant community (mostly from former French West Africa, with parts of Harlem along 116th St called Le Petite Senegal) in Upper Manhattan, but I wouldn't consider their numbers large enough to make a big difference city-wide.

**This is changing somewhat. Rosedale, Laurelton, etc. have a significant amount of Jamaicans in particular. Also, black Guyanese (like most Guyanese) tend not to identify as "black" on the Census, preferring "Other", and they're a significant factor in some Queens neighborhoods (Richmond Hill, Ozone Park) - and of course Guyana is not a Caribbean island so they are not Caribbean per se though definitely foreign-born.

Edit: Wikipedia says (though unfortunately without citation) that NYC has about 700,000 blacks of non-African American ancestry (Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latino or African background plus I'm sure a tiny number of Afro-Europeans, etc.), including descendants of immigrants, out of a total black population of about 2,000,000. Which sounds like the right proportions to me.

This. Guyana is a beautiful nation. Hardworking people in NYC.

[King of Kensington]

Most of the Guyanese in NYC are Indo-Guyanese I think, at least in Queens (where the largest Guyanese population is). 

[King of Kensington]

I think West Indian ancestry is underreported.  According to this, 456,000 New Yorkers were born in the non-Hispanic Caribbean (I took out Guyana since the Census Bureau doesn't count Guyanese with West Indian ancestry and I'm pretty sure a majority of Guyanese in NYC are not Black), yet only 600,000 are of West Indian ancestry of all generations - even after decades of immigration? 

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/data-maps/nyc-population/nny2013/nny_2013.pdf

[King of Kensington]

This study suggests to me that those 1st and 2nd generation West Indians outnumber those with solely AA roots in NYC.

Based on the 2005 ACS, Mollenkopf found that those of West Indian birth or parentage made up 11% of NYC's total population.  "On the eastern seaboard, black and white immigrants are altering what it means to be 'black' or 'white'...almost nine out of ten of the nation's blacks are of native stock, but fewer than half are in New York.  Whiteness can have a Russian accent in New York, blackness a Caribbean lilt."

p. 259 here:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=v4CuDl15Q5kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=twenty-first+century+color+lines&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW4cGS-87YAhWq54MKHSqcCBEQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=twenty-first%20century%20color%20lines&f=false

[King of Kensington]

Foreign born age 18+, Black or African American:

NYC  40.8%
Brooklyn  45%
Queens  42.3%
Bronx  41.5%
Staten Island  27.5%
Manhattan  25.6%